I've Been to Hill and Back Again

I woke up a little before 6am, and my Vivoactive said it was 72 degrees.  I figuree that was the "coolest" weather I'm likely to have the rest of the weekend, and well, I don't always have motivation, so when I do, I need to make sure I get my butt there.

The sun was already bright by the time I got over to Northeastern.  I got out of my car.  It felt warm already, and I was dreading it.  I decided to make things worse.  I've been running the same 3.1 miles route since April, focusing more on consistency than speed or distance, and running the same route over and over really lets me have a good comparison from run to run.  Was I faster than usual?  How did I feel compared to other days?  It makes it nice when there's a day like Thursday, where I can say "Ok, I felt worse than usual, but it was because I was about 30 seconds/mile faster than usual".

Well, today I decided to mix it up.  I have a hilly 3-mile loop that starts at Northeastern High School in Manchester, goes down Maple Street & Walnut Street into Mt. Wolf, climbs up to Six Street, cuts over to Chestnut, which provides a steep downhill followed by a en even steeper uphill that takes me back to board road and my start.  It's brutal, and I'm disappointed by how non-hilly it looks on this GarminConnect elevation map.  (It looks much more impressive on my phone, but I left my phone downstairs and then I'd have to transfer things over to my computer and it's a pain).

Here's my normal route (my run from yesterday) for comparison:

Anyway, it hurt, but I'm really happy with how it went.  I had a faster pace than yesterday, even on a more difficult route.  It was a few degrees cooler and less humid, but with the sun beating down on me, I still felt like I was boiling.

While my wife and I were training for the Shamrock Half in 2016, we'd run our long run either Friday night or Saturday morning, and then I'd run this on Sunday, and I found it to be a good test of strength.  I think I'll start mixing it in again.  As Frank Shorter says, "Hills are speedwork in disguise."

Putting it all Together

I despise running in the summer.  I'm committed to consistency until cooler weather returns, by which I mean getting out for 3-4 miles (usually will be 3) 3-4 times a week, but I've decided I'm not going to put a lot of effort into pushing myself on pace or distance until it does cool down.

Still, it's very nice when I get a slightly cooler, less humid morning like today and what's probably my best run of the year.  I was faster back during the few weeks in January and February, but today I ran my fastest four-miler of the year, 44:33 (11:08 pace), beating my previous best from this year by exactly minute and crushing my four-milers from May and June by 2-plus minutes.  Today hurt.  It was a beautiful morning, but it was still warm by my standards.  But today's run makes me very confident that if I stay consistent, that I'll be able to get myself back to a sub-30 5K and a sub-40 four-miler sooner rather than later.  I will probably never be as fast as I was in my early 30s, and I don't care about that, but I'd like to achieve both of those goals by the end of 2017.

How's your summer running going?

Trying to Come Back...Again & Some Off-Topic Fun

I went on my first run since the unfortunate events of Spartan Race. I'd gotten up to run a few other times over the past week and a half, but aborted due to either weather (Saturday), too much pain in the tailbone area (several days last week), getting home at 4am after an excellent Dream Theater concert in Atlantic City (Sunday), waking up too late (Monday), or staying up all night working on Monday night (Tuesday).

I decided that I'd run out of excuses, and so this evening I ended up running 3 miles in 28:46.

It felt like 20 miles.

It was a gorgeous evening, but in the 80s and still Sunny at 6:15ish when I hit the roads. I'm not used to running in the 80s, so I've got to either get out earlier and beat the heat, like I did last summer, or perhaps try 9 or 10 at night, when it may be a few degrees warmer than 6am, but less humid and no sun. We'll see.

At any rate, I feel like I'm starting over and I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. After a pretty good start, the comeback had badly stalled over the last two months. And I do have a plan this time, but I have to save something for my next blog post, right?

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(So, how was the concert, Brian?)

It was great, thanks for asking. For those unfamiliar with Dream Theater, who have failed to achieve the level of fame that their talent deserves, they are a progressive metal band (I don't really know what "progressive" rock means, but think Queensryche or Rush, but heavier) that I've been listening to since high school, when they released Images and Words, which features their best-known song, "Pull Me Under" (which is still not THAT well-known) and Awake, their best selling album to date, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.

However, I was unforgivably behind on their albums. It's easy to lose track of them, since they're more of a cult following-type band then a widely-known band and most of their songs are at least 10 minutes long so that they get almost zero airplay. So last week was spent working long hours and "cramming" for the concert any time I wasn't on conference calls. Except for the side of effect of this metal marathon turning our kitten evil, it was time well spent. Their last three albums, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds and Silver Linings, and A Dramatic Turn of Events are all excellent, all with Dream Theater's distinct combination of metal and melody.

At any rate, the concert was excellent, with a good mix of old stuff and new stuff that left me feeling evil...but also uplifted at the same time. Musically, they're just amazing. Guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and drummer Mike Mangini on the drums (replacing long-time DT-er Mike Portnoy) are all at incredible. And they like to show off; almost every song has long instrumental bridges between verses, during which lead singer James Labrie wanders off stage to (I assume) play Angry Birds.

Their newer stuff is heavier than their earlier albums, and heavier than I what I usually listen to, but the frequency with which they change mood and speed from heavy to melodic and the vocal range of Labrie, and their often contemplative lyrics make them always interesting to listen to and also made me glad I'd done my homework and caught up before seeing them live. If you like metal or hard rock, check 'em out...these guys can make anything sound epic.

And, during their intro, they also had these cartoon versions of themselves playing on the three screens above the stage. Fun!

Ok, we'll now resume our regular running and complaining about running blog posts.

Saturday Long Run, The Non-Epic Triumph of Humanity over Humidity

Since the dawn of time, man has struggled to overcome uncomfortable humidity...

I had been dreading today's long run for several days.

17 miles was what Hal Higdon had assigned for the weekend, and as I said last week, I'm definitely getting outside my comfort zone (Getting? Come on. Ok, I'm well outside my comfort zone). On a cool crisp day like last weekend, no problem; I felt like I could I have run forever last Saturday.

But this weekend brought a return of somewhat summer-like conditions. An overcast 65F, which I admit isn't bad compared to July, but with 97% humidity. Warm and humid is the bane of my existence -- at least my running existence.

So I worried. I made contingency plans. I accepted defeat. But I still had a choice.

I could bow to humidity once again, or I could stab it in its warm, wet, sticky, gross
heart.

I could keep complaining and writing whiny blog posts, or I could shut the hell up and run 17 miles, humidity be damned.

And as long as "shut the hell up" allows for the pathetic whimpering noises that I was making for the last two miles, that's exactly what I did.

It took me 2 hours and 59 minutes (a 10:31/mile pace for those keeping score at home) to finish, but it was not a victory without cost. I'll be reminded by my aching calves and quads, as I limp around Lincoln Financial Field tomorrow, that running is stupid and the guy that (according to legend) invented the marathon died while inventing the marathon. But costly or not, I consider it a victory nonetheless. .

It may have been 97% humidity out there, but anything short of 100% just wasn't going to be enough today.

I've gloated enough. More than enough. I'm sure my IT Bands will go all IT Band Syndrome on me as my karma balances out next week. I'm sure it will somehow be even more humid, if that's even possible, on my 18-miler next week. I'm sure my Shuffle will get stuck on "Britney Spears Mode".

But for now, I'm thrilled. After being so nervous about this run over the past few days, I felt like I had won a race when Garmin said "17.00" as I turned back into the high school.

In the endless struggle of man vs. humidity, man wins.

Saturday Long Run: Return to Humiditytown

It was really, really humid this morning. The kind of humid that makes me think it's time to find another hobby. The kind of humid that makes me question the existence of good in this world. The kind of humid that makes me right write posts complaining about humid it is. The kind of humid that makes me screw up homophones.

Hal Higdon called for 9 this week. Since I've done such a great job of listening to him so far, even this week, my first full week "on program", I just ran my usual 10-mile route through Manchester and Mt. Wolf. I had a slow pace again today, but unlike Monday's unexplainable bonk, I'm just going to attribute this one to slogging through 100% humidity.

(Yours truly at my finishing point, Humiditytown Middle School)

Did I mention that it was really, really humid? It was 73 degrees at the start of my run, which is quite warmer than it's been for my morning runs the past two weeks but nothing special overall for the summer, but the humidity must have been AT LEAST 1000% if not infinitely more. It was very overcast, which allows me to forgo the visor, but I was still disgusting and sweaty within half a mile.

Since words are powerless to convey exactly how much I was sweating, let's again use the power of MS Paint to try to capture the level of disgustingness (That's not a word, spell check? Screw you!) we're talking about here (click to enlarge):


Good luck on your runs, everyone. I'll be inside playing video games. (And best wishes to anyone in Irene's path.)

HumidityFest 2011 -- In Pictures

At mile 1 one of today's run:



At mile 10 of today's run:

Fail Trail

I've christened today's run "The Fail on the Trail". It wasn't a bad run, it was just kind of a meltdown of preparation and mental sharpness on my part.

Like I've said in most of my recent entries, I'm not really starting my marathon training yet, since I'm shaving the first few weeks of Higdon's Novice II because I'm already ahead of the mileage, but I was still hoping to get a longer long run in this morning. 14 was my goal. I thought I'd run on the rail trail, because it would give me a change of scenery and, if I started at Brillhart, the opportunity to stop and refill my bottles at the turnaround point at Hanover Junction. Brilliant! Since I wanted to beat the heat and be on the trail around 6am, I laid all my clothes and paraphernalia out the night before. That's not just preparation, that's extraordinary preparation!

I checked the always reliable weather.com (please consider the italics to be the sarcasm font in this case), and noted that today's low was predicted to be 67 degrees. Awesome! Anything under 70 is a gift I'll gladly accept. But, when I scrolled through the hourly forecasts, none of them showed lower than 74. D'oh! That's not terrible, but a little warmer than most of my summer early morning runs. With that in mind, I considered lowering my distance goals a bit, but instead decided that the shade of the rail trail and the built-in refilling stop would be too much of an advantage to give up.

Alarm went off at 4:30, and I'm ready to be out the door at 5:20. Clockwork. Except for one little thing...I saw that I hadn't put the plug from the charger into my Garmin fully, and it had less than an hour of charge.

FAIL

I like to have Garmin, despite its inaccuracy, since it lets me monitor my pace without having to resort to math, but this wasn't a critical error -- I still have my trusty Timex Ironman Triathlon (no sarcasm here, I seriously love this watch). No problem, everything was still going smoothly. I got to Brillhart station at 6:00am, and headed southward on the trail. I was running along, everything was going fine, and I don't need Garmin when I have an awesome and reliable stopwatch... that I forgot to start.

FAIL

A bit discouraged, I started my watch. I'm estimating I was only 3-4 minutes into my run before starting it. Not the end of the world, but I bet Meb Keflezighi never forgets to start his watch.

I quickly noticed that the humidity was humiditating rather heavily, but luckily the trail has a great amount of shade and it was mostly overcast, anyway. Of course, I'd opted for the visor, even though under these conditions it's unnecessary and even a minor detriment.

mini-FAIL

Within the first mile, I was already sweating profusely. In fact, people following me on the trail probably had to swim for it. My route turned out to be not as well-thought as I'd planned. You see, Chris and I had biked this same section of the trail on Tuesday night. This had the unfortunate effect of making it seem like it was taking forever to get anywhere while running. On a bike, the Howard Tunnel seems just a few minutes past Brillhart Station. Today, it seemed light years away (Really, it's about 2 miles from where I started/finished.)

FAIL

(Isn't it pretty? Doesn't it look humid?)

Once past the tunnel, things seemed to take a turn for the better. Using my now-running chronometer and the mile markers on the trail, I could tell I was running about a 10-minute mile pace, and I started feeling better, or at least getting used to how gross I felt. There was one close call where I thought I saw a snake coiled on the trail ahead of me (EPIC FAIL), but fortunately it turned out to just be a branch with some leaves.

I reached Hanover Junction in approximately an hour. It turned out to be between and six and seven miles away from Brillhart. I took a short break to drink some water and refill both of my bottles, and then headed north (to FREEDOM!)

The way back didn't seem to take as long as the way down (In reality, it took the same time or a few minutes longer.) I was still laying down between 9 and 10 minute miles and, since the trail is picturesque but really just running in a straight line, was bored out of my mind. All I could focus on was watching for the next mile marker, just wanting to get this one over with. Finally, it seemed, I reached the cool relief of the tunnel, which was just a cooler but more humid spot on this humid run.

(Crap. Is it "Come into the light, Brian." or "Don't come into the light, Brian"?)

From there, though, it was easy. Just two miles to go. As I reached Brillhart Station, my watch read 2:03:10, so I'm estimating my full run at 2:07. It turned out, according to the distance reading from Tuesday's bike ride, to be 12.76 miles.

Good enough.

Also, People are Jerks
As I ran, I said "hi" to everyone who passed. Maybe 1 in 10 returned my hello. I don't expect to become best friends with people I meet on the trail, but I'm running, they're running, isn't the bond of shared suffering enough to warrant a friendly greeting?

Several people have told me that they've noticed that solo female runners usually won't say hi to a lone male runner. Do I look like a creepy stalker? I've never stalked anyone, and I really don't think I'm that creepy looking. So thank you to the two ladies who did return my hello, you reassured me a bit that perhaps I don't look like an axe murderer. And even if I were, where I would hide an axe while I'm running?

There was one guy in particular that I thought was a jerk. He was definitely a better runner than me, catching up to and passing me after starting at Brillhart a few minutes after me and then pulling way ahead of me. I said hello as he passed, and was greeted by a stony silence. At what I believe to be the 5-mile mark (based on a previous bike ride along this course), he turned and passed me going the other way. I said hello again, and this time was glared at for my troubles.

Well Mr. Cool, I'll have you know that while you may be (much) faster than me, I continued on to Hanover Junction and back again, and I believe that makes me the better man.

So, that's the end of today's rant. Am I off-base here? What's proper running etiquette in this situation -- hello or no?

42nd and Pine

I complain about the heat. A lot. I admit that. But the past few days have been ridiculous. We're talking highs of 105 on Friday, 100 on Saturday, and about 97 yesterday. I would suggest that on Friday and Saturday it felt even hotter due to the bright sunshine and high humidity.

We weathered, sometimes with good cheer even, the heat and had a great, busy, sweltering weekend in Philadelphia with friends from Wisconsin, and while I was there I was hoping to get a run in. After all, Philadelphia is where I lived for a year starting in June 1999 and where I made my first attempt to become a runner. It wasn't a very good attempt. I recall on my first or second evening in my apartment going for a run in 95-degree heat. I made it about 2 blocks.

More often, when I went somewhere in my car, I would park at the garage at 36th and Chestnut where I kept my car and attempt to run from there to my apartment at 42nd & Pine. I never made it the whole way -- I specifically recall a freezing night where I made it about 2 minutes before my lungs were just in terrible pain from the bitter cold air and my ankles in complete agony from running in what were probably worn-out, extremely cheap sneakers. I never would have imagined that this would become my favorite weather to run in!

Returning to the present, we sweated out a crazy 18-10 Camden Riversharks game on Friday night, and since it was still 95 degrees at 11:00 at night when the game ended, I decided that there was no way I was going to try to run on Saturday morning.

According to the forecasts on display in our hotel lobby, Sunday looked like it would be a little cooler, but I would still guess it was approximately 80 degrees when I stepped out of our hotel at 5:15am yesterday morning. Still, I took off westward from 15th & Locust, the site of the job that had lured me to Philly, but choosing to turn and run up Chestnut Street since I was familiar with it from some adventures in the Philadelphia Half Marathon (except that it was about 40 degrees cooler then!) and I knew it had a bridge.

(30th St. Station as seen from the Chestnut St. bridge)

I ran up Chestnut Street and turned onto Locust Walk when I got into the University of Pennsylvania Campus, which I was somewhat familiar with since my sister attended Penn while I lived at 42nd and Pine. Once through the campus, I turned left and then made a right on Spruce, passing Allegro, my old favorite pizza place.

(No, I didn't stop for a cheesesteak. Maybe that would have helped)

I made it the few blocks down to 42nd Street and turned left. At the corner of 42nd and Pine, a familiar building:



I took a few extra steps on Pine Street to scope out the rear of the building, where my apartment is visible on the first floor (the window you see directly above the two garbage cans was my kitchen):


It never looked like much from the outside, and seems a little worse for wear 12 years later, but I had once felt at home in my little studio apartment. It was a weird feeling to be back on this corner. I wasn't really sentimental about it. There were no roots put down, no neighbors that I'd ever said much more than "hello" to, no sign that I'd ever lived here, and my memories are mostly just of playing video games and cooking turkey burgers and my indoor counter-top grill (Not the one endorsed by the boxer). It was just an odd, deja-vu type feeling, it all looked and felt so familiar, as if it had been much less than the 12 years since I'd walked down this street.

Still, when it's 80 degrees before 6am, there's no time for reminiscing. I'd reached my old apartment about 30 minutes into my run, and I was definitely feeling the heat. I headed back up Spruce Street in the direction of my hotel. After a two-block climb back to 40th Street, it was all downhill to the Schuylkill River, at which point i made a right onto Walnut Street since there's no bridge on Spruce. I took Walnut back toward the downtown and after passing Rittenhouse Square, turned around at Broad Street, a few blocks past my destination, in hopes of stretching this run to an hour.

Here's map of my route. I was out for an hour and two minutes, and during that time only got about 5 and a half miles, which was about all I could take in those conditions. Except for the weather, it was a nice trip down Memory Lane for me. Not counting my failed attempts at running in 1999 and 2000, I'd only run a few times in Philadelphia, and it had been either in races (2 half marathons and 1 Broad Street Run) or boring laps around Rittenhouse Square while training for my first 5K.

For someone who hadn't lived in this neighborhood and didn't need to revisit old, yet boring memories, I would suggest running the other direction, toward the Delaware and the historic sights of Old City instead or perhaps the jogging/biking path along the Schuykill. Philadelphia's downtown is very flat, so it seems like it could be a nice place to run. Just not during a record-breaking heat wave.

As predicted, last week was the lowest mileage week I've had in months. Of course, I rested on Monday and Tuesday for a one-mile race on Wednesday, and then the heat crushed me on Thursday and Sunday morning. I ended up with less than 13 miles, a weekly total less than my best individual run the previous week. The forecast for this week looks a bit cooler, with overnight lows in the 70s or even high 60s, so I hope I can come back strong.

Friday Haiku, Volume VIII

Summer, you have won.
All my resolve melts away.
This week I yielded.


I surrender.

We've had 100 degree temperatures over the past few days and predicted to continue through the weekend. It was 78 degrees at 5:00am yesterday morning. I kept a slow pace but cut my run short by 4 miles (6 mile run, down from a plan of 10). I've acclimated to the heat quite a bit compared to where I was a month ago, but I'll never get used to that that.

Last Friday, I ran 14 miles. I won't total that this whole week.

It's a setback, but not as bad as it sounds. I still had my great run last Friday, 10 on Sunday (which I count as part of last week), a one-mile PR (that I am very sore from) and six in some of the worst conditions I've ever run in. I'm anticipating another heat-shortened run tomorrow morning as PA continues to get pounded by an extreme heat advisory lasting through the weekend, I might even skip that.

There's a time for maximum effort, but this isn't it.

Race Report: 2011 Miller's Mutual Harrisburg Mile

Last night was the Harrisburg Mile, a summer race that's become something of a tradition for us. Chris and I started running it in 2007, my first year of racing, and we've run it every year since except for 2009, when a scheduling conflict prevented us from racing.

The Harrisburg Mile course runs straight down Front Street along the Susquehanna River, beginning at Maclay Street and ending at Boas Street. It's really very scenic, but I always fail to appreciate it until after the race because A.) I'm running as fast as I can and B.) It's usually ungodly hot.

This year would be no exception. With temperatures in the high 90s yesterday and a heat index (again, according to weather.com) of 98 remaining at 7pm, I think this was my hottest Harrisburg Mile yet. (2007 gives it a run for its money, 2008 was a little less hot but oppressively humid, and last year we got a little bit of relief). We were already hot by the time we'd walked from our car to the starting area. I'd set a fairly aggressive goal for myself of a sub six-minute mile, but conditions were not favorable. I kept telling myself "It's only a mile. It's only a mile."

My heat went off at 7:15. About five minutes prior, the starter called people up to the start line. With heats going off every 10 minutes (or less in the case of the Corporate Challenge heats), there's no time for screwing around. With a faster goal than years past, I debated where to start. There is chip timing, but I knew that a six-minute mile was at the extreme edge of what I could do, and so I didn't want to get caught behind too many people, nor did I want the people that were shooting for a faster finishing time to trip over me. I overheard a few other people say there trying to run sixes, so I stood near them in the third or fourth row, only about 10 feet -- if that -- back from the starting line.

The starter called time remaining till start until only a few seconds remained..."Hold...hold...GO!" And so I went. To meet my goal, I needed a pace of 10mph. Looking down at Garmin, I saw that I was right on pace, far, far outside my comfort zone. I hit the quarter mile sign right at about 1:30, but I couldn't quite hold the 10mph pace and so I hit the half mile sign at 3:10. I don't remember seeing the 3/4 mile marker, honestly the race is really a blur. I was giving it everything I had and it was as hot as hell, my only comfort was that it would be over quickly. As I saw the finish line, I knew my 5:59 or better was not going to happen, but a pretty significant PR was still well within reach. I tried to increase speed at the end, but there wasn't anything left for a sprint to the finish -- the whole race was my sprint to the finish.

6:21.

That's a PR by 23 seconds, but 22 seconds short of my goal. My average speed was 9.45 miles per hour (compared to 8.9 last year). I'm happy with that, especially considering that it was run during a heat and air quality advisory -- more Brian-unfriendly running conditions could scarcely be found. But on the other hand, this just reinforces a lesson that I need to learn or a choice that I need to make: If I am going to care about PRs and finishing times in shorter races, I need speedwork. I've clearly reached the limits of how far I can go with a strategy (or lack thereof) that's exclusively focused on running distance and then "run as fast as I can" during the shorter races.

I think I can improve my marathon time with more long runs in advance of race day and smarter pacing on race day (slower throughout the race so I don't hit the wall as hard), but if I'm going to beat this time next year or keep lowering my 5K PRs then I need to hit the track. I might be able to gut out a slightly faster 5K PR with my current approach, but I don't think I can beat a 6:21 mile without speedwork. I'm so close being under six. I can do it. Do I want it badly enough?

As I've talked about here before, I'm not sure of the answer to that. I care about my performance, but I also need to keep running enjoyable for me or I won't do it. Still, I think a finishing time under six minutes is worth some track work.

You win this year, Harrisburg Mile. But I'll be back.

5:59 or bust.


Review
The Mile is unique among all my races -- the only one that really feels like a sprint -- and that's what makes it fun. That's not it's only redeeming quality, however. The scenery is nice , though like I said I had such tunnel vision that I hardly noticed it. Crowd support is also good, the Mile has been going on since 1982, so it really is a strong tradition in the Harrisburg community with lots of spectators.

Another positive, of course, is that there's "free" beer at the end. That's always appreciated on a 90+ degree evening. This year the race was part of the Michelob "Race to the Ultra" series, which meant that there was Michelob Ultra signage EVERYWHERE and that this was the beer of choice at the beer tent. I always think Michelob Ultra's marketing is funny -- it's the beer that tries to pass
itself off as a sports drink. Unlike past years the post-race party area was very well set-up and the line moved very quickly.

(Yes, I raced to the Ultra. There, I said it. Can I get my corporate sponsorship check now, please?)

Race organizers also rose to the challenge of the extreme heat by having cold water at the starting area, which in my case likely made a huge difference as I realize I probably didn't hydrate well enough during the day yesterday, and ample water at t he finish, which was not the case when my heat finished last year. Running out of water at a race in July? That's a huge error that was thankfully corrected this year.

The swag for the race was also excellent, which is typical of the Mile. In the past we've gotten a drawstring backpack (I know they're super cheap, but this one has a zipper pocket and has come in handy on my occasions), a fairly bland but ok t-shirt, and a sleeveless shirt that's one of my favorite beach or pool shirts. This year, another t-shirt, but at least it's different from the previous years' designs, and it's colored. Not bad.

But, the star of the giveaways, the thing that takes this from good to awesome are re-usable cups from Dunkin Donuts that can be refilled with iced coffee for 99-cents per refill for the rest of the year. We get Dunkin iced coffee almost every week, so this is a good perk.

The only area for improvement that I would mention are that the clocks get re-set very quickly between heats. If someone runs a 10-minute mile pace or above, it seemed as if they didn't see their time when they crossed the finish line. This wasn't the case in any previous year that we've been there.

Oh -- and the heat. Any chance of it moving the Mile to April? No...I didn't think so, but it was worth a try.

22 Miles

So, this is supposed to be a running blog.

Not a haiku blog. Not a cat-pictures blog. Not a pictures-of-food blog. And not a cranky guy complaining about the weather all the time blog.

So then. Running. Yeah...ok. Usual route (10 miles through Manchester and Mt. Wolf), usual pace (1:39ish), usual amount of sweating (gallons). And we're done. Carry on. Nothing more to see here.

Easiest. Post. Ever.

What? We're not done. But it's really &^%$ hot out there! Oh, fine.

12 miles ridden on the rail trail at 3:00pm in the afternoon in 90+ degree weather then.

Now I'm done, right? Ok, someone please lift these donuts into my mouth.

Therein lies the dilemma of the running blogger, at least this running blogger. On one hand, yesterday's 22 miles was my second-highest mileage day ever (even if 12 of it was achieved through cheating), and that seems worthy of blogging. But on the other hand, it's pretty boring reading -- I've already posted lots of pictures from biking on the rail trail, wrote about my normal running route (a pretty boring one, I admit). There's not a lot of race reports, which I admit are my favorite thing to write, over the dog days of July and August, since I don't race as much during these months, so it could get even more boring around here. I'll probably resort to a post of my favorite races, best swag, worst races. You know, exciting stuff like that.

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But, anyway, here's the longer version:

My run on Sunday morning was complete drudgery, so the above summary pretty much suffices. It wasn't quite as slow as Friday's version, but still definitely on the upper end of my range. It was a better day for testing the new Reebok Playdry visor, since it was sunnier. The visor still seems ok. It covers my forehead and keeps sun out of my eyes, but is cooler than a regular hat or even (in my case) sunglasses. The visor itself gets soaked, and I think it will be fun to post a picture of how gross it is by the end of the summer, or at least until I can't stand it anymore and need to try to wash it.

When I picked up some other stuff at the running store last week, I noticed that Brooks and Nike had visors that were a thinner material on the non-brim parts of the visor than the Reebok. Maybe they would stay dryer? At any rate, my new piece of gear seems adequate, at least, but other than that it was usual pace and usual route -- NOW with even more humidity!

I knew that Chris and I were planning on biking later, but I was in a hurry to run some errands and then get to PetSmart for my cat adoption center volunteer gig, so I failed at breakfast. Usually after a long run I'll have waffles or bread with lots of Nutella or peanut butter (or waffles with Nutella and maple syrup on them -- delicious!), but since I was in a hurry I chugged a bottle of gatorade, quickly ate a bowl of cereal, cleaned up and headed out.

As I was driving on my first errand, I realized this wasn't going to cut it -- I could hardly stay awake. So my first errand was to eat a the King Size Payday bar. 440 delicious, peanutty calories later, I felt MUCH better.

(Mmmm...recovery)

After refueling, I went to help adorable homeless cats find homes. Well, that's the intent. There weren't any applications, but at least I got to play with kittens (Sorry! I know, not a cat blog.) before heading off to the rail trail.

(This is Chester. Want to adopt him? Trust me, you do.
www.ycspca.org)

We began our ride at the northern end of the rail trail at the old courthouse in York. The temperature was in the mid-90s, significantly hotter than our other rides on the trail. Usually as we ride, I feel cooler. However, this time as we rode southward, the heat kept its intensity. I briefly took my helmet off to try to cool down, with little effect. Luckily for us, once we started to get out of the city, the trail became shadier and cooler, and we paused for water at 4 miles, 6 miles (our turnaroudn point just past Howard Tunnel), and at 9 miles. Overall, we rode 12 miles in 1:20,going faster on the return trip.

The total for the day was 22 miles in 2 hours and 59 minutes. Two Maple Donuts were earned by the day's adventures. (The Payday was lunch!)

One day later, my legs are very tired. Luckily, today was a day off. I was going to run tomorrow morning, but it's supposed to be 75 at 6am. Since, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, have lows predicted to be in the low 60s, I may wait an extra day and run Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.

The Hunt for Cold November

I've had many a summer run, and if you're bothering to read this you probably have, too. You know, those days when the humidity is crushing and it just feels hard to breathe out there. I'm fond of saying that on days like that it feels like I should be running in scuba gear.

:
That just wasn't going to cut it today. Today was more like this:


I've had (by my modest standards) a great summer of running so far. I had eight 10-mile runs in June and 3 of 10 or more in July in just this first week of July. I had zero runs of 10 or more miles between the first week of May last year (Broad Street Run) and October. But, this is the first summer where I'm training for the Philly Marathon rather than the half, so for the first time in my "career" I'll need to get longer runs than that in July, August, and September. (My total mileage might not increase much, since I'm going try to follow the mileage plan a little more strictly than I followed my last one, where I on average ran one fewer time per week than called for but lengthened all my midweek runs.) 10 miles won't cut it.

I never felt like I had it, whatever it is, today and crashed after 7 miles out of an intended 10. I'm not too worried. Weather.com said there's an air quality warning today, and I did feel like my breathing was as good as usual. Also, I was long overdue for a bad run. I do think I need to try something new to make these summer runs more enjoyable. I really like running at night, but the volume of bugs in the air at night makes that seem gross in the summer, and it's not that much cooler or less humid than it is in the morning, so it's probably not worth it to eat a pound of bugs.

I'm already pushing my limits of getting up early, but perhaps getting up a little earlier and doing at least my long runs on the rail trail, where there's some shade and maybe more of a breeze (maybe?) will make these summer runs a little more bearable. Maybe bringing the Shuffle back will at least distract me from how gross I am.

Or, I'll just have to grin and bear it and hope it pays off in November.

********************************************************************
After getting several recommendations to try a visor for sun protection w/o the heat of running in a hat, I bought a white Reebok Playdry visor from Dick's Sporting goods, where it was labeled as being on sale for $7.49 and then rung up as costing less than $4.00. (Original price: $16.00) I believe it was so heavily discounted because it was the 2010 model. It seemed to be identical to a 2011-labeled visor, which was also discounted but not as deeply. They had Reebok visors available in black and reflective yellow, although I think only the one I grabbed was marked down as much. I love baseball caps, but visors aren't a good look for me, so I wasn't too worried about aesthetics. Lightweight, light-colored, supposedly moisture-wicking, and not too expensive were my selection criteria. That said, I own many pieces of goofy-looking running gear, and I don't think my new visor is among them.

I wore it on my run today and it didn't make things worse. That may not sound like a glowing endorsement, but from someone who hates running in the heat as much as I do and (sorry to be gross) sweats as much as I do from my head, that is pretty high praise for headwear. It certainly didn't make me feel less disgusting, but it was definitely an improvement over running with sunglasses, which always make my face feel much hotter. Hopefully the visor will let me get my face and eyes some sun protection without making me feel hotter. We'll see how it does on a less hazy day with brighter sunshine.

I've been meaning to occasionally do some product reviews here in hopes that I'll eventually get some free gear to test (at least I'm honest, right?), so if the visor performs especially well or turns out to be a cheap piece of crap that doesn't last a week, I'll be sure note that here. If it helps, it's one of the best bargains I've ever gotten and probably would have been worthwhile at $16. If it doesn't, at least I didn't pay full price!

Sluggish

You may have noticed that I dislike running in hot weather. Therefore, over the last few days when I saw 58 degrees as today's low, I made it my plan to get out for a run this morning. I got ready to go, and checked weather one last time only to find that it already was supposedly 68 degrees. Oops, the low is supposedly tonight.

But, I was up and ready to get out there, so out there I went. I arrived at my starting point at Northeastern High School and found a cloud cover that would not be out of place on Venus, humidity that I suspect was well above 90%, and according to the digital sign at the school, a temperature of 66 degrees. With the sun a distant memory, the heat alone wouldn't have been as bad, but the Amazon-jungle strength humidity made the run unpleasant by about the time I hit mile 2. I pressed on, though, since I had eaten quite heartily the day before and had a big diner breakfast in the near future.

The roads and sidewalks of Manchester were deserted, as other humans had wisely elected to stay in their beds. But I was not alone.

I see slugs on almost all my summer morning runs. I try not to step on them, but they seem pretty innocuous most of the time. But I've NEVER seen a slug like this:

(10oz. hydration bottle for scale)

Anyone who has seen the 1988 horror classic "Slugs" knows that slugs are terrifying predators who can decimate a whole town. So, a few of my high school friends and I are probably safe at least. Since I have seen the film, I took off running. I mean, I was already running, but I started running faster and went farther just to get away my pursuer. In hindsight, I probably needn't have worried. My route crossed the path of Giant Mutant Slug twice, and in the time it took me to run two miles, my slimy nemesis had moved about six inches.

In my escape, I went 10 miles in 1:36:35, bringing me to 38 miles this week, my second highest mileage week ever. I got three 30-milers in in pretty warm, humid conditions, so I think I can work my way up to some 15-16 mile long runs by the end of August, especially if I can find somewhere flatter and shadier than my usual courses.

"Race" Report: 2011 "9" Mile Tour de Memorials

I had no shortage of Memorial Day Weekend racing opportunities:

• There was a 5K starting at 11:59pm on Friday Night. I'd had a good 8-mile run that morning, though, in hot and humid conditions and thought that might be overdoing it.
  
  
• There was a 5K starting in Wrightsville that crossed the Susquehanna on Saturday, but I opted for the bike ride instead.
  
  
• There was the MCVET 5K & 10K Sunday morning. I can't say enough about what a good event this was when I ran the 10K in 2009, but I had cat adoption center duty that afternoon, and I thought would make for a rough day.
  
  
• And I saw that this morning (Monday) there was a 5K and 9-mile untimed training run that passed all of York's memorials.
  

I thought this last option sounded cool. Despite living most of my life in York, including all the time that I've been a runner, I've never really done a race that went through downtown. I've run a lot of 5Ks so far this year, and I'm also stuck in a rut lately in my training as the weather warmed, unable (or unwilling!) to push myself past 8 or 9 miles.

The 9-mile "Tour de Memorials" sounded like just what the doctor ordered. Except that my dislike, to put it politely, of running in hot temperatures is well known, and this was a brutally hot and humid day for a run.


I regretted my machismo within the first two miles. I was taking it easy according to plan, but there's no such thing as easy for me when it's almost 80 degrees at 8:00am. I had my camera phone, and I'd planned to stop and take pictures of the monuments and have a nice tour of the city, but once I got underway my only thought was to keep putting one foot in front of the other until I had completed the course. I really can't think of a single intelligent thought I had the whole time I was out there running.

(This is how I felt at mile 2.)

(This is how I felt at mile 6)

My pace was slow (9.5 miles in 1:36) and I felt close to overheating at times, but I did run the whole time. On a day like this, I'll take it.

Review
I'm an easy grader, but there were some issues with this one. The website claimed both courses were mostly flat. Again, I think race directors and runners (at least this runner) have vastly different definitions of flat. The total elevation change may not have been much, but there was a lot of up and down on the course. (A commenter who ran the 5K said it was not flat, either.) But, the cold (hot?) hard fact is that I don't live in a flat part of the country. Of course, I may feel differently after the Druid Hill race (which sounds like it's supposed to be torturous) a few weeks from now.

Secondly, a snafu along the course, when the fairgrounds was closed where we were supposed to go in, changed the distance and added a half a mile. Really, it was not a big deal. If the change in course had caused a water station to be missed, I would have been much more upset about it on a day like today.

There was a lot to like though, too. Basically, for the same price ($25, which goes toward developing a garden to honor the fallen soldiers of York) as the 5K, there was a challenging, well-marked longer distance run that was a nice tour of York, despite me really failing to appreciate it. Runners had some flexibility; the same bib numbers could be worn for either distance, so you didn't really have to decide which distance you were running until the gun (Which was actually the York Revolution's home run cannon fired by Cannonball Charlie) went off. The t-shirt is nice, and the very, very much appreciated water at the two water stations was ice-cold.

Would I run it again? That's what it always comes down to, right? I'm not sure. Any judgement of this event that I have is going to be clouded by the fact that it took place in weather conditions that, in my opinion, are pretty much the worst possible conditions to run in. If it were 10 degrees cooler, which is more typical for this time of year here, I would probably have had a better time, and I might run this course in the winter to shake up my routine. Race directors are very powerful beings indeed, but they can't control the weather or flatten out a not-so-flat city. The things they could control went generally well. I think I would run it again, but I would probably choose the 5K on a day like this.

(I thought they did a nice job with the race shirt.)

Now excuse me, I'm off to get some iced coffee and a donut.